Users ditch Glassdoor, stunned by site adding real names without consent

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Glassdoor, where employees go to leave anonymous reviews of employers, has recently begun adding real names to user profiles without users’ consent, a Glassdoor user named Monica was shocked to discover last week.

“Time to delete your Glassdoor account and data,” Monica, a Midwest-based software professional, warned other Glassdoor users in a blog. (Ars will only refer to Monica by her first name so that she can speak freely about her experience using Glassdoor to review employers.)

Monica joined Glassdoor about 10 years ago, she said, leaving a few reviews for her employers, taking advantage of other employees’ reviews when considering new opportunities, and hoping to help others survey their job options. This month, though, she abruptly deleted her account after she contacted Glassdoor support to request help removing information from her account. She never expected that instead of removing information, Glassdoor’s support team would take the real name that she provided in her support email and add it to her Glassdoor profile—despite Monica repeatedly and explicitly not consenting to Glassdoor storing her real name.